Category: Hockey Cards

2020-21 Upper Deck AHL Box Break #2

I have been a fan and collector of minor league hockey cards ever since I bought a ProCards Saginaw Hawks team set in 1989. I enjoy cards of future NHL players, as well as “borderline” players who are sometimes called up to the parent club but never got their own hockey card.

Needless to say, minor league hockey cards have evolved a lot over the past 30+ years. They no longer use dark photos and have plain, black-and-white card backs. Upper Deck’s 2020-21 American Hockey League card set is every bit as good in quality as its other hockey card sets, with crisp, color photography, glossy coating, and silver foil. At first glance, you might mistake these for Upper Deck Series One, save for the fact that they picture AHL players instead of NHL players. 

Last week, I opened a box of 2020-21 AHL cards; you can read about that here, as that break gives more details about the set. Let’s see if this box is better, worse, or about the same as my first break. 

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2020-21 Upper Deck AHL Box Break

2021-22 has been a strange year for hockey card collectors. This season, there were still cards from the 2020-21 season coming out in the middle of the 2021-22 season. One such set is 2020-21 Upper Deck AHL, which features cards of future NHL prospects, as well as star players from the second-best hockey league in the world. 

2020-21 Upper Deck AHL hockey cards costs around $50 for a 12-pack box. Each pack has 10 cards. Each box promises six “Star Rookie” cards, an autographed card, a numbered parallel, and an additional chase card. 

I recently opened a box of 2020-21 Upper Deck AHL. Here is what I got. 

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2021-22 MVP Hockey Box Break

Hockey cards for the 2021-22 season finally started hitting store shelves at the end of 2021. First up was 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP Hockey, the company’s “lower-end” card set that isn’t too expensive to buy or too difficult to complete. It also doesn’t have any rookies from the 2021-22 season; the 30 rookie cards are of players who made their debut in the abbreviated 2021 season. A box of MVP has 20 packs with eight cards per pack. The current online price of MVP is around $50 for a hobby box. I recently got a hobby box. Here is what I found inside. 

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Video: 2020-21 Pro Set Memories Hockey Box Break

Sal Barry breaks a box of 2020-21 Pro Set Memories Hockey. Released in August of 2020, a box of 2020-21 Pro Set Memories Hockey has two autographed cards of hockey legends and two “buybacks” of old Pro Set Hockey cards from the 1990s. A box currently costs around $150. 

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2020-21 Allure Hockey Box Break

Not long before the 2021-22 season started, Upper Deck released 2020-21 Allure Hockey. All of Upper Deck’s hockey card releases have been pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is sometimes an odd feeling to open last year’s hockey cards during this season — especially when you pull a card of someone who has since changed teams.

Anyway, a hobby box of 2020-21 Allure Hockey contains eight packs. Each pack contains eight cards. A box is guaranteed to have one jersey card and one autographed card. Boxes of Allure debuted at around $160 per box but are now selling for around $140 from online retailers based in the U.S. 

I’m a bit late to the party here, but I finally had a chance to open a box of 2020-21 Allure Hockey. Let’s see what I got. 

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The Ralph Macchio Hockey Rookie Card

Cobra Kai and Karate Kid Star Macchio Got His Own Hockey Trading Card in 1991-92

Last week, Cobra Kai Season 4 premiered on Netflix and quickly became the streaming service’s most-watched series. But did you know that Cobra Kai and Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio had his own hockey card 30 years ago? Here’s how –and why — it happened. 

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The Puck Junk Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame: Class of 2021

The year 2021 would not be complete until 10 more cards are inducted into the Puck Junk Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame. Since 2017, this website has honored the most-horrendous hockey cards ever made. Some cards use bad photos, other cards have janky paint jobs…and some cards are just straight-up awful and should not have been made in the first place.

So, before we can ring in 2022, let’s take a look at some of the worst hockey cards ever made. 

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Rookie Cards of Every NHL Head Coach for the 2021-22 Season

Every NHL head coach was involved in hockey at a high level prior to coaching in the world’s best hockey league. Some were NHL players, while others played major junior, collegiate, or minor pro hockey before coaching. Thus, all 32 NHL head coaches have had at least one hockey card issued sometime during either their playing or coaching careers.

Here is a list of rookie cards for every head coach in the NHL. Some had mainstream “rookie cards” found in sets  like Topps, O-Pee-Chee, Upper Deck, and Pro Set cards. Others did not play — or did not play long — in the NHL. In their cases, I tracked down the earliest trading card that coach had. I’ve indicated the value of each card and how difficult the card is to find today.  

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David Backes’ First Hockey Card

2001-02 Lincoln Stars #2: David Backes

Today, 15-year NHL veteran David Backes signed a one-day contract with the St. Louis Blues so that he could retire as a member of the team he spent most of his career with. The Blues picked Backes in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft in the second round, 62nd overall. Five years later, Backes made his NHL debut, played 10 seasons with the Blues, and then another five seasons split between the Boston Bruins and the Anaheim Ducks.

But 20 years ago, a fresh-faced, 18-year old Backes was playing Junior A hockey with the Lincoln Stars of the USHL and was included in the team’s 2001-02 trading card set. Of course, back then Backes was a little shorter and a lot lighter 

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2020-21 Upper Deck Extended Series Hobby Box Break #3

Can you have too much of a good thing? Maybe so. My third and final box — for now, anyway — of 2020-21 Upper Deck Extended Series gave me some new surprise insets, as well as inserts that I’ve already grown a bit tired of.

As much as I love the retro-esque inserts in Extended Series, I seem to get the same types over and over, while there are other types of inserts that I have yet to see. And I don’t mean that I’m getting doubles of any insert cards. Collation for Extended Series has been great overall, and I did get a few types of insert cards that I didn’t get from my previous two boxes. 

So, let’s take a look and see what surprises were inside my third box of Extended Series.

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